Driving progress in STEM, equity, and resilience
Imagine. Invent. Deliver. The Booz Allen Foundation is dedicated to empowering human potential and driving wider social impact in a spirit of passionate service.
Each year, the Foundation shares highlights of how its technology investments and solutions fueled transformation in and for traditionally underserved and underrepresented communities. Highlights follow from the 2021 Booz Allen Foundation Annual Report.
Connecting COVID-19-related Solutions to Ongoing Priorities
In 2020, the Booz Allen Foundation awarded 21 Innovation Fund grants to nonprofits, small businesses, and universities to immediately accelerate their development of solutions to COVID-19 challenges. In 2021, the Foundation built upon these efforts, and the report features spotlights on four grantees that not only received funding from the Foundation, but also received support from Booz Allen Hamilton employees through pro bono or volunteer projects. These include:
- Abaton, which designed a device capable of decontaminating nearly 40,000 N95 healthcare masks per week, moved into the manufacturing stage with a plan for global scalability
- Becky’s Fund refined and launched its ENDOVI app, which more than 800 people have used to date to find help leaving an abuser, explore options for taking that step later, or aid relatives or friends experiencing domestic abuse
- The Filipino Young Leaders Program expanded its Tayo platform, which provides culturally tailored messages for countering misinformation and fraud, which will also soon provide a technology help desk for Filipino-American senior citizens
- The Coleman A. Young II (CAY II) Educational Foundation in Detroit expanded its Coding Lab Accelerator, which provides a supportive and advanced environment for STEM learning
“As grantee projects reached fruition, we saw the myriad ways in which the Foundation’s responsive support created a measure of resilience in communities under stress,” said Christine Hoisington, executive director of the Booz Allen Foundation.
“A second round of grants this year helped our community partners expand and intensify their missions in alignment with ongoing Foundation priorities: addressing educational challenges that the pandemic created or worsened, increasing access and opportunity to make workforces more inclusive, and supporting underserved communities by using innovation, including technological advances, to uncover solutions to pressing problems,” she said.
Joining Forces to Drive Progress, From Cell Phones to STEM
Guided by these priorities, the Foundation both responded to immediate crises and strengthened its own capacity to make an impact over the past year.
When evacuees flying to the United States from Afghanistan in August 2021 lacked cell phones, the Foundation provided funding toward a homeland security program that helped the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Foundation address this need. The program rapidly supplied nearly 10,000 mobile phones and preloaded 6-month service plans to more than 34,000 Afghan refugees.
The Foundation launched new initiatives under its well-established impact pillars of empowering diverse talent and driving community resilience. These included a new employee-nominated grant cycle, launched with a $200,000 Equity Grant by Booz Allen, 5-year pathbuilder grant cycles in Washington, DC, and San Diego to expand opportunities for diverse student populations, and a number of capacity-building efforts, from partnerships to advanced analytics.
“We’re looking forward to enhancing our grant-making effectiveness, increasing the focus and impact of all our work, and driving progress in the year ahead,” Hoisington said.